Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut

Sergeant Francis Nicolls' kinsman. Sir Rich- ard Nicolls, the first English Governor of New York, who named New York and Albany, was in a certain sense the founder of Connecticut, as 3S COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. Thomas Hooker, from whom a number of the last two generations of Nichols of Nichols come direct, was of the constitution of the State. In 1662 Charles II granted to Connecticut a tract of land reaching across the continent; however, in 1 664, he revoked his gift and presented the largest part of Connecticut to the Duke of York. The final decision of Governor Nicolls, fi.xing the limits of the State of New York twenty miles east of the Hudson, saved Connecticut, so that he was really the founder of the State of Connecticut. The family name both in New York and Con- necticut was spelled Xico/ls, during the early Colonial period. Sergeant Francis Nicolls' son, Caleb Nicholls, from whom the Nichols of Nichols descend, was also exclusively a landed proprietor. He mar- ried Anne Ward, a granddaughter of Sir Richard Ward, a daughter of Andrew Ward, Esq., of Fairfield, Conn., who, prior to his settlement there, had been Lord of the Manor of Baccons in England. Andrew Ward was commissioned together with Winthrop, Roger Ludlow and two others, to govern the people of Connecticut, when the State stretched nearly down to New York City, besides embracing half of Long Island. As a magistrate he declared war against the Pequots, was also a deputy to the first court held in Connecticut, and took an active part in portioning off the townships of the State. His wife was a Miss Sherman, the granddaughter of Henry Sherman, of Sherman Hall fame, Ded- ham, England, from whom descended Roger Sherman, the signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence; General Sherman; Hon. John Sher- man; Mrs. Bradley-Martin; the Countess of Craven; the Countess Castellane; the late Jay Gould; ex-Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts; George Burroughs Torrey, of New York and Paris; and the Hon. William M. Evarts. Col. Aaron Burr, the third Vice-President of the United States, traced his lineage back to this Ward-Sherman marriage, from which the Peet- Nichols branch of the Nichols of Nichols come, in a double line of descent. Mary Nichols, of Stratford, a niece of Caleb Nicholls and Anne Ward, married Rev. Israel Chauncey, the chief founder of Yale College, and an ancestor of the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew. Abraham Nicholls, born 1622, a son of Caleb Nicholls and Anne Ward, having inherited from his father and grandfather a proprietary right in the township of Stratford, was the first to erect a homestead on the ancestral estate at Nichols in North Stratford. The wife whom he brought to his lordly domain of three thousand acres was Rachel Kellogg, a daughter of Hon. Daniel Kel- logg, one of the founders of Norwalk, who rep- resented Norwalk eight years in the General Assembly between 1670--1683, and his wife. Miss Bouton, a granddaughter of Jean Bouton, the Marquis of Chamilly and Marshal of France. Among the prominent and wealthy descendants of Abraham Nicholls and Rachel Kellogg are George Foster Peabody, of Brooklyn, a kins- man of George Peabody, the philanthropist; the late Bradley Nichols, of Bridgeport, and George W. Nichols, of Brooklyn Heights, who married a Miss Main, the sister of Mrs Robert Allyn, of Hartford. The family of George Foster Pea- body and George W. Nichols, of Brooklyn, who are cousins, was related to Sir Joshua Bates, of London, of the firm of Baring Bros. Sir Joshua Bates' daughter, the late Madame Vandevveyer, lived in Windsor Park, near Windsor Castle, and Her Majesty Queen Victoria was present in person at the christening of each of Madame Vandeweyer's children, for whom she stood as godparent. The present Mr. Vandeweyer, of Windsor Park, married a sister of the Earl of Craven. George Foster Peabody, who is well- known in London, is a member of the firm of Spencer, Trask & Co., New York City, presi- dent of several railroads, and vastly influential in political movements of the United States. Capt. Joseph Nichols of Nichols, besides being a hereditary landholder of more than two thousand acres, was prominent in local ec- clesiastical and military affairs. He caused the highway to be laid between Stratford and Nichols, the road being icnown as "The Cap- tain's Highway," and Nichols as "The Cap- tain's Place." He was the uncle of Stephen Burroughs, the astronomer, and married Mary Curtiss, of Nichols, whose family possessed large means and were allied to Governor Welles. Lieut. Nathan Nichols, a son of Capt. Jo- seph Nichols of Nichols, served on the Com- mittee of Safety during the Revolution, and his grandson. Stiles Nichols, was born in 1761, was the founder of the Bridgeport Fanner, one of the most influential newspapers of western Con- necticut. Frederick C. Nichols, a prominent citizen of Bridgeport, who has a handsome resi- dence on Golden Hill, is a great-grandson of Stiles Nichols. Frederick C. Nichols' sister, Mary Louise Clark, married Benjamin C. Por- ter, one of the most celebrated of American por- trait painters. Andrew Nichols, Esq., of Nichols, son of Capt. Joseph Nichols, was one of the wealthiest men of that part of the country, and his great- grandson, Bradley Nichols, who lately died, was the richest person of the name of Nichols in COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 39 Bridgeport. Andrew Nichols married Abiah Plumb, a daughter of Noal Plumb, in direct line from ' ' Thomas Hooker, one of the makers of America." Andrew Nichols, Esq., kept a large number of slaves, and his daughter, Martha, married Col. Lewis Fairchild, of Trumbull, the founder of the present Fairchild fortune. Hor- ace L. Fairchild, a prominent resident of Nichols, is a grandson of Col. Lewis Fairchild and Nfartha Nichols. Hezekiah Nichols of Nichols, a son of Andrew Nichols, Esq., succeeded to the homestead and a goodly portion of the estate of Nichols. He was related to the Rev. James Nichols, the last Episcopal clergyman who went to Scotland for ordination, and to the first ordained in America — Rev. Philo Shelton. Hezekiah Nichols mar- ried (first) his cousin. Prudence Shelton, a lineal descendant of Governor Welles, and (second) Avice Peet, of whose family name the old Peet mansion in Brooklyn is a significant memorial. Avice Peet's grandniece, Alice Sumner, the sister of Prof. William G. Sumner of Yale College, married Walter Camp. The late George Kneeland Nichols, of Bridge- port, a son of Hezekiah Nichols of Nichols and Avice Peet, was the chief founder of Nichols as a manufacturing village. He was born in the large homestead house of his grandfather, Andrew Nichols, Esq., which stood at the head of the estate, and had to be taken down along with its extensive slave quarters early in the present century. George Kneeland Nichols married Ar- mina (Piatt) Seeley, a daughter of the Rev. Monson Seeley, and a great-granddaughter of Lieut. Nathan Seelye of the Revolution, who is buried in the old Stratfield cemetery. Mrs. Nichols is descended in three lines from Richard Lyon, the first of Fairfield, whose landed prop- erty reached twelve miles in one direction. The Rev. Charles Wilbur de Lyon Nichols, of New York, born at Nichols, is the only surviving child of George Kneeland Nichols and Armina Seeley. Among the family heirlooms is an original copy of Guillim' s Display of Heraldry, the cele- brated edition of 1724. George Kneeland Nichols was buried in the cemetery at Nichols, in ground which had been in the possession of the family more than two hundred and fifty years, and the grave is marked by a monument bearing the Governor Nichols coat of arms. Since the death of David Stiles Nichols, Charles Brinsmade Nichols is the leading repre- sentative of the name at Nichols. Harry Nichols French is a grandson of the late David Stiles Nichols, and the wife of the Rev. Dr. John L. Peck, who resides at Nichols, was a Miss Nich- ols, a great-grandaughter of Andrew Nichols, Esq. The late Charles Lewis Nichols, of New York, born at Nichols, married the beautiful and accomplished Jeanette (Jennings) Burroughs, a relative of Sir Joshua Bates; Walter Nichols, of Bridgeport, is their son. Sir Joshua Bates, who married Lucretia Jennings, of Boston, used to visit in Bridgeport at the house of his wife's rela- tives, the capacious Stephen Burroughs home- stead, which stood near the present railroad sta- tion, and almost on the site of the "Atlantic Hotel." Walter Nichols, a son of Charles Lewis Nichols and Jeanette (Jennings) Burroughs, married l£liza L. Nichols, a daughter of the late James \\. Nich- ols, of Bridgeport, formerly of Nichols. Walter Nichols and his wife are second cousins through both the Nichols and Peet sides of their families, and his grandfather Burroughs was, on another- line, second cousin to his wife's grandfather Nich- ols; he is a brother of the millionaire, George W. Nichols, ot Brooklyn Heights. Mrs. John V. Singleton, of New York (whose husband's family came originally from Philadelphia), Miss Frances Serena Nichols, of Bridgeport, and Mrs. Lewis Bonnell Crane, of New York, are daughters of the late James \\. Nichols and Elizabeth Seeley, of Bridgeport, and great-granddaughters of An- drew Nichols, Esq., of Nichols. Lewis Bonnell Crane, of New York, who married Miss Carrie J. Nichols, is a son of the late Russell Crane, of New York and Saybrook, Conn., a wealthy mer- chant, whose wife was a daughter of Judge Wil- lard, of Saybrook. Russell Crane's only daugh- ter, Minnie T. Crane, married Edmund Penfold Schuyler, of New York, a son of Cornelius Van Alen Schuyler, .whose wife was a Miss Quintard, sister to Bishop Quintard, of Tennessee, and aunt to Mrs. William Ford Nichols («iV Quintard), the wife of the Bishop of California. I3ishop Nich- ols' father, Charles Hubert Nichols, was born at Trumbull, Conn., two miles from Nichols.